ARC Review: 'MANIK by Amo Jones

I’m Beatrice Kennedy, but everyone calls me Beat. I live a low-key life, fresh out of college and drifting from town to town until I find my home.
I love music, and how it stirs even the deepest and untouched parts of your soul. Depending on what you choose to listen to, would depend on what it touches. It’s the drug we all damper in, only different strains. My strain is Jazz. The smooth instrumental strums that take over me. The sound of cigar smoke, bourbon and an old dusty fedora hat. My strain wasn’t rap, and it sure wasn’t laced with some A-class shit like murky blue eyes casted down from the Lord and the Devil’s handcrafted smile. I knew who he was—the whole world did. One fateful night set off a chain of events, events that no one was coming back from. You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved. You can’t pull them up from the ocean when they’ve latched themselves to an anchor. Love was my anchor, destruction was the water that was drowning me, and the rope that was so tightly clamped around my ankles, was woven with the lyrics of Aeron Romanov-Reed, also known as, 'Manik. He steals hearts from all around the world, but one night, he stole something that wasn’t his to steal.
Me.

★★★★☆

I knew when I picked up this book to read that it was going to drive me crazy. That's the expectation I have for any story coming from Amo Jones. She has this way of evoking such strong emotions from me and I thought I was prepared.

While reading 'Manik I found myself grinning and laughing, staring at the words in utter disbelief, wanting to throw my kindle (I didn't... that ish cost me good money), getting turned on, getting turned off, and scratching my head in confusion. Blow-my-mind, spank-my-cooch, and rant-to-people-who-have-no-idea-what-I'm-mad-about confusion!

So Beat was a lost girl. All of her family was gone and she was alone in this cold, cruel world. Bouncing from city to city, she's made a little home for herself in New Orleans. She's found an amazing roommate and friend in Kyle, she's tending bar at the city's hot spot, and she's lonely. And then Aeron 'Manik' Romanov-Reed walks through the door.

There were so many things about this dude that made him incredibly hot to me. It was the way he found pleasure in torturing Beat while his heart called for her. It was how he had different names to match the different parts that made him who he was. His was a character that spoke to me. He was a talented rapper, a soldier for the Bratva, a loyal son, and the man who would finally learn what love is.

The flow of the story was disjointed and I found myself getting lost sometimes. The dialogue itself could be a bit weird and there was a time or five that I wasn't really sure what was going on. It felt like there were several plots happening at the same time. However, somewhere in the middle, things started to make sense and I was glad that I wasn't able to put this book down. All of a sudden, this love story turned even darker and went down a road or two I wasn't expecting.

Honestly, the fact Beat and Manik could be together at all defies logic. I wish there were more words describing how they got through it all. They basically met, she witnessed something she wasn't supposed to, she was taken captive, he enjoyed tormenting her, she went free, he didn't let her go far, they become a couple. Then the truth of who she is starts to come out, tensions arise in the Bratva, she's stuck in a cage, bad things happen, he takes her and treats her like crap, she goes free again, and then even more truths come out. I wanted the couple to have more couple moments. Because I just couldn't see how these two could be together.

Then again, this is fiction and Jones did an amazing job of taking me out of reality and thrusting me into the warped illusion that swam with unrealistic events, insane levels of intensity, and had Beat and Manik living in a world of happy endings. This story was perfectly imperfect and I'm hoping there will be more books set in this world of Manik's creation.